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Leadership wants next quarter's number. A straight line through last quarter ignores the fact that this business always spikes in December.
What you'll have at the end
A next-quarter revenue forecast built by deseasonalizing three years of history into a trend line, then reseasonalizing that trend with the target quarter's own seasonal index, checked against a naive straight-line projection and against last year's same quarter.
You need
A quarterly revenue history covering at least three full years with no missing quarters, plus comfort computing an average and reading a simple trend line.
Not covered
A business whose seasonal shape has genuinely shifted between years, a shrinking holiday spike or a moved fiscal peak, needs a fresh set of indices built from recent history rather than this same pair reused forever.
Tell seasonality apart from a real trend
if you have not already ruled out that the recent move is a trend break rather than the usual seasonal swing, settle that question before building a seasonal forecast on top of it.
Give your KPI one company-wide definition
if marketing and finance are still quoting two different revenue numbers, settle on one definition before forecasting either of them.
Checked 26 Aug 2026
Part of the Data Analytics cookbook